The butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker would feel right at home in the Santa Fe Community Orchestra. The volunteer group, now starting its 28th season, boasts members from a dazzling array of professions and avocations. They work to meld their abilities under conductor Oliver Prezant and give regular performances of symphonic repertoire, offer community events, and play youth concerts.

The 2009-2010 roster includes a librarian, a professional quilter, and a chiropractor; a bookstore owner, a retired bank executive, and a pharmacist; a psychologist and a cookbook writer; a legal secretary and a church administrator; and an industrial hygienist.

There are also six scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in the ranks, as well as three doctors, three lawyers, four professional music teachers, three retired college professors, two oil and gas developers, two school teachers, and three arts administrators. Not to mention two retired professional musicians on an ongoing busman's holiday.

One of the retired professionals, Richard Hall, was second bassoonist with the Houston Symphony for 28 years. There, he played under conductors including the legendary Sir John Barbirolli, André Previn, Lawrence Foster, Sergiu Comissiona, and Christoph Eschenbach. Hall and his wife have been living in New Mexico for 18 years, and he's never stopped playing during his supposed retirement — first for the Taos Community Orchestra and Chorus, now for SFCO. What gives?

"Mr. Prezant's programming is perfect for anyone who has been a professional musician," Hall said. "He programs very ambitiously, but it comes off. We get to play things that are not always the usual Beethoven first, the overture to Rosamunde, or the Liszt stuff.

"We started one season off with the Symphonie Fantastique of Berlioz, about two, three years ago. On the last pages, all hell breaks loose. I was sitting in the middle of the brass, as I have done for lots of years — the woodwinds are always right in front of the trumpets and trombones and horns — and I was thinking, This is really good. I'm lucky to be doing this. And this year, we're ending the season with the Mahler first symphony."

There's more to like than the repertoire. Hall is happy to be playing in an ensemble whose members want to practice, rehearse, and perform with a sense of glee that can wear thin in professional groups. "The last years I was in Houston, I was noticing the endemic cynicism that professionals have, you know, when it's a 9-to-5-plus-nights kind of job. When I was playing with the Taos Community Orchestra when I first came out here, people would say, what a come-down from Houston. I said, not at all! The Taos orchestra was pretty good, actually.

"The general attitude in SFCO is very positive and appropriately playful," he added. "Oliver can say some of the funniest things that I've ever heard come off a podium."

Founded in 1982 and led for decades by Robert Wingert — Prezant has been in charge for 10 years — SFCO offers an annual season of free music lectures and performances, plus community outreach. St. Francis Auditorium in the New Mexico Museum of Art is its longtime performing home, though the group now tries to play once a year in the Lensic Performing Arts Center, and it will give a 2009 Christmas concert in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. The orchestra gave a free concert of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Santa Fe Opera in 2008. Outreach includes an Orchestra Buddies program that involves youth in the group's activities; various instrument-making workshops; and children's concerts. SFCO won a 2007 Mayor's Recognition Award for achievements in community arts.

The orchestra's fall concert is set for 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18, in St. Francis, with an "Anatomy of a Symphony" lecture-demonstration preceding it at 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16. The repertoire is Elgar Howarth's Processional Fanfare, César Franck's tone poem The Accursed Huntsman, and Brahms' second symphony. The winter concert, at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 6 in St. Francis, offers music from Poulenc's ballet Les biches, Vivaldi's "La Notte" concerto for flute and bassoon, and Vaughan Williams' "London Symphony." At 6 p.m. Jan. 22, Feb. 19, and March 19, SFCO will read works by New Mexico composers at Stieren Hall at the Santa Fe Opera.

A free community event, "Let's Dance!," takes place from 7 to 10 p.m. Feb. 20 in the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. SFCO will be joined by the Santa Fe Great Big Jazz Band to provide a feet-on-the-floor opportunity for those who love movement from swing to ballroom. There will also be a silent auction and refreshments for sale.

SFCO returns to the Lensic at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 7, for a collaborative concert. The orchestra will perform Copland's El Salón México as accompaniment to Paul Glickman's animated film of the same name; Tchaikovsky's Mozartiana with students from Moving People Dance Centre and violin soloist Martha Caplin of Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 7. At 7 p.m. April 23, they perform Parts I and II of Haydn's The Creation at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi with chorus and soloists. The concert is SFCO's contribution to the year-long festivities for Santa Fe's 400th anniversary.

The final concert of the season sees the orchestra return to St. Francis at 2:30 p.m. May 30 and will include Mahler's Symphony No. 1 and the world premiere of new commissioned work, composer to be announced; an "Anatomy of a Symphony" preview will take place at 6 p.m. May 28.

Janet Cordova, SFCO's concertmaster, has played with the ensemble for 10 years. She began studying violin in third grade while growing up in Los Alamos, and she continued playing through college, but she stopped when she began raising a family and attending law school. She got her fiddle back into her hands thanks to longtime SFCO flutist Mary Ann Martinez.

"I got pretty good when I was going to Smith College," she said, "and I decided to start practicing again when my son was in grade school. I missed it. Mary Ann was his fourth grade teacher, and she said, 'Why don't you come?' So I started to accelerate my practicing! I started off in the back row of the second violins, and 10 years later, I'm concertmaster.

"Oliver expects a lot out of his principal players, and we do sectionals and master classes. There's a real camaraderie — people seem like they really want to get better and practice, not just show up and sight-read."

Details
Santa Fe Community Orchestra: music of Howarth, Franck, and Brahms, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 18
"Anatomy of a Symphony" concert preview, 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 16
St. Francis Auditorium, New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 W. Palace Ave.
No charge, donations accepted; see sfco.org for information